The Manhattan Project

by Cynthia C. Kelly

  A traditional theory has been that the President feared political criticism if he provided assurances to the emperor. But, other historians note, leading Republicans were for—not against—clarifying the terms to achieve a surrender, and were calling for this publicly. Moreover, American leaders always knew the emperor would be needed to order a surrender—and, of course, in the end they did agree to an understanding which allowed such assurances: Japan still has an emperor.

  Hasegawa believes the assurances were taken out of the Potsdam Proclamation precisely because American leaders wanted to have the warning rejected so as to justify the bombing—and, further, that they saw the bomb as a way to end the war before Russia could join the fighting. There is other evidence suggesting that policy makers, especially Secretary of State Byrnes, wanted to use the bomb to “make the Russians more manageable in Europe”—as he told one scientist.

  (Full disclosure: My own view—as one of the historians involved in the debate—is that the bombings were unnecessary and that American policy makers were advised at the time that a combination of assurances for the emperor plus the forthcoming Russian declaration of war would likely bring about surrender in the three months available before the invasion could begin. I also believe the evidence is strong, but not conclusive, that American leaders saw the bomb above all as a way to impress the Russians and also as a way to end the war before the Red Army got very far into Manchuria.)

  Why are historians still struggling over these issues? One reason is that few nations find it easy to come to terms with questionable actions in their past. Nor is this a simple left-right debate. In recent years liberals have been critical of the decision. At the time The Nation magazine defended the bombing while many conservative publications criticized it—including Human Events, and later, the National Review. “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul,” former President Herbert Hoover wrote to a friend.

  One of the most important reasons the issues don’t seem to get resolved has to do with the historical record. The fact is most discussions concerning the decision to use the atomic bomb were simply not recorded. Not only were such matters handled in an extremely secretive manner, they were largely handled outside the normal chain of command. There is also evidence of the manipulation of some documents and of missing documents in certain cases—and in some instances, evidence that documents were destroyed.

  Perhaps one day we will know more and the long debate over Hiroshima will come to an end. We are unlikely, I think, to discover new official sources. However, a new generation of scholars may well be able to ferret out diaries, letters, or additional personal papers in the attics or basements of descendants of some of the men involved. An even more interesting possibility is that the President’s daughter Margaret will one day donate additional papers to the Truman Library. (In her own writing Margaret reports details which seem clearly to be based on documentary sources. However, she has so far refused to respond to inquiries from historians asking for access to these.) A third possibility is that if, as some believe, the Soviets bugged the Truman villa near Potsdam, Germany (or the villas of other American or British officials who were there for the July 1945 meetings just before the bombings), there may be tapes or transcriptions of some key conversations in NKVD or other files in the Russian archives.

  Section Nine

  Living with the Bomb

  Living with the Bomb

  The dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki challenged world leaders to construct new institutional approaches to prevent a devastating nuclear war that could mean the end of civilization. The Acheson-Lilienthal report set the basis for the United States’ proposals to the United Nations for international control to ensure that nuclear energy was directed to peaceful, not military, purposes. On June 4, 1946, Bernard Baruch presented a modified version of the proposal to the United Nations that was rejected by the Soviet Union. The Cold War arms race had begun.

  Despite initial failure to establish international consensus, eminent scientists and political leaders repeatedly tried to appeal to the United Nations to intervene in the escalating arms race between the United States and Soviet Union. In 1950, Niels Bohr, one of the most revered physicists of the twentieth century, wrote an Open Letter to the United Nations that called for free exchange of scientific and technical knowledge and cooperation among nations.

  President Dwight D. Eisenhower also addressed the United Nations in 1953. In a speech that became known as “Atoms for Peace,” Eisenhower urged the world to strive to reduce the threat from nuclear weapons and develop peaceful applications of atomic energy instead. In 1955, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein echoed the call for international controls as the new hydrogen or “H” bomb made the destructive capability of nuclear weapons many thousand times greater. Joseph Rotblat, one of the signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, declared that it should be “required reading for every citizen,” as it calls upon the international community to eliminate nuclear weapons and renounce war.

  Despite these appeals, the Cold War and its nuclear arms race continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, while the enormous Cold War arsenals are somewhat reduced, there are still more than 25,000 nuclear weapons in global arsenals. India and Pakistan are engaged in an arms race of their own, North Korea has set off an underground nuclear detonation, and Iran seems determined to possess the bomb. An article by four former senior U.S. government officials and a response from former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev warn that nuclear weapons pose a continuing, growing threat to mankind that must be urgently addressed. Finally, distinguished Manhattan Project veteran George Cowan reflects that perhaps we need a new Manhattan Project to address today’s threats.

  “If atomic bombs are to be added to the arsenals of the warring world, then the time will come when mankind will curse the name of Los Alamos and Hiroshima.”

  —J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, LOS ALAMOS, NOVEMBER 2, 1945

  On the International Control of Atomic Energy

  The Acheson-Lilienthal report was a turning point of the Cold War, providing an opportunity to avoid a nuclear arms race. A joint product of Dean Acheson, Under-Secretary of State, and David E. Lilienthal, Chairman of Tennessee Valley Authority, the report advocated the sharing of knowledge of nuclear energy and inspections to ensure its development for only peaceful use. However, these terms were amended by Bernard Baruch, who was appointed by President Truman to present the report to the United Nations. The modified plan, known as the Baruch Plan, was rejected by the Soviet Union.

  March 17, 1946

  Dear Mr. Secretary:

  Your committee was appointed on January 7, 1946, with the following terms of reference:

  Anticipating favorable action by the United Nations Organization on the proposal for the establishment of a commission to consider the problems arising as to the control of atomic energy and other weapons of possible mass destruction, the Secretary of State has appointed a Committee of five members to study the subject of controls and safeguards necessary to protect this Government so that the persons hereafter selected to represent the United States on the Commission can have the benefit of the study.

  At our first meeting on January 14, the Committee concluded that the consideration of controls and safeguards would be inseparable from a plan of which they were a part and that the Commission would look to the American representative to put forward a plan. At that meeting we also agreed that it was first essential to have a report prepared analyzing and appraising all the relevant facts and formulating proposals. In order that the work should be useful, it was necessary to designate men of recognized attainments and varied background, who would be prepared to devote the major part of their time to the matter.

  On January 23, 1946, we appointed as a Board of Consultants for this purpose: Mr. David E. Lilienthal, Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, who acted as Chairman of the consulting Board;
Mr. Chester I. Barnard, President of the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company; Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, of the California Institute of Technology and the University of California; Dr. Charles Allen Thomas, Vice President and Technical Director, Monsanto Chemical Company; and Mr. Harry A. Winne, Vice-President in Charge of Engineering Policy, General Electric Company.

  The Board of Consultants has spent virtually its entire time, since the date of appointment, in an intensive study of the problem, and has now completed its report, which is transmitted herewith.

  A preliminary draft of this report was first presented to your Committee ten days ago. Extensive discussion between the Committee and the Board led to the development of further considerations embodied in a subsequent draft. Still further discussion resulted in the report now transmitted.

  We lay the report before you as the Board has submitted it to us “not as a final plan, but as a place to begin, a foundation on which to build.” In our opinion it furnishes the most constructive analysis of the question of international control we have seen and a definitely hopeful approach to a solution of the entire problem. We recommend it for your consideration as representing the framework within which the best prospects for both security and development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes may be found.

  In particular, we are impressed by the great advantages of an international agency with affirmative powers and functions coupled with powers of inspection and supervision in contrast to any agency with merely police-like powers attempting to cope with national agencies otherwise restrained only by a commitment to “outlaw” the use of atomic energy for war. In our judgment the latter type of organization offers little hope of achieving the security and safeguards we are seeking.

  We are impressed also by the aspect of the plan which concentrates in the hands of the international agency only the activities which it is essential to control because they are dangerous to international security, leaving as much freedom as possible to national and private research and other activity.

  We wish to stress two matters brought out in the Board’s report—matters of importance in considering the report’s proposals as they affect the security of the United States both during the period of any international discussion of them and during the period required to put the plan into full effect.

  The first matter concerns the disclosure of information not now generally known. The report points out that the plan necessitates the disclosure of information but permits of the disclosure of such information by progressive stages. In our opinion various stages may upon further study be suggested. It is enough to point out now that there could be at least four general points in this progression. Certain information, generally described as that required for an understanding of the workability of proposals, would have to be made available at the time of the discussion of the proposals in the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, of the report of the Commission in the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations, and in the national legislatures which would be called upon to act upon any recommendations of the United Nations. We have carefully considered the content of this information, and in our discussions with the Board have defined it within satisfactory limits. We estimate the degree of its importance and the effect of its disclosure to be as follow: If made known to a nation otherwise equipped by industrial development, scientific resource and possessing the necessary raw materials to develop atomic armament within five years, such disclosure might shorten that period by as much as a year. Whether any nation—we are excluding Great Britain and Canada—could achieve such an intensive program is a matter of serious doubt. If the program were spread over a considerably longer period, the disclosure referred to would not shorten the effort appreciably.

  The next stage of disclosure might occur when the proposed international organization was actually established by the action of the various governments upon the report of the United Nations. At this time the organization would require most of the remaining scientific knowledge but would not require the so-called technical know-how or the knowledge of the construction of the bomb.

  By the time the organization was ready to assume its functions in the field of industrial production it should, of course, require the technological information and know-how necessary to carry out its task. The information regarding the construction of the bomb would not be essential to the plan until the last stage when the organization was prepared to assume responsibility for research in the field of explosives as an adjunct to its regulatory and operational duties.

  The second matter relates to the assumption or transfer of authority over physical things. Here also the plan permits of progress by stages beginning in the field of raw material production, progressing to that of industrial production, and going on to the control of explosives.

  The development of detailed proposals for such scheduling will require further study and much technical competence and staff. It will be guided, of course, by basic decisions of high policy. One of these decisions will be for what period of time the United States will continue the manufacture of bombs. The plan does not require that the United States shall discontinue such manufacture either upon the proposal of the plan or upon the inauguration of the international agency. At some stage in the development of the plan this is required. But neither the plan nor our transmittal of it should be construed as meaning that this should or should not be done at the outset or at any specific time. That decision, whenever made, will involve considerations of the highest policy affecting our security, and must be made by our government under its constitutional processes and in the light of all the facts of the world situation.

  Your Committee, Mr. Secretary, awaits your further instructions as to whether you believe it has performed the task you assigned to it and may now be discharged or whether you wish it to go further in this field under your guidance.

  Dean Acheson

  Chairman

  Vannevar Bush

  James B. Conant

  Leslie R. Groves,

  Major General, U.S.A.

  John J. McCloy

  “CHOICE BETWEEN THE QUICK AND THE DEAD”

  “We are here today to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business… We must elect World Peace or World Destruction.”

  —BERNARD BARUCH, JUNE 4, 1946 TO THE UNITED NATIONS ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

  MUST DESTRUCTION BE OUR DESTINY?

  The bomb that fell on Hiroshima closed the door on an age. One plane, one bomb, one city. A hundred bombs, a hundred cities. Now, for the first time in our history, it is theoretically possible for one nation to destroy the major cities of another nation before the victim could do anything about it. Unfortunately, that possibility may soon become a reality. The consequences are clear: civilization and humanity as we know them can now survive only if some radical changes take place in our way of thinking. We must find some means of protecting ourselves—from ourselves. It is obvious that the indiscriminate handling of this new power must, in some manner, be prevented. Unfortunately, the controls and institutions that will be necessary to avoid our own destruction must be conceived, developed, and put into operation in a space of time that is all too short. The urgency is great; the penalties for taking the wrong course will be disastrous.

  —HARRISON BROWN

  Bohr’s Open Letter to the United Nations

  As early as April 1944, Niels Bohr recognized that the new weapon “will completely change all future conditions of warfare.” Bohr presented this letter to the United Nations on June 9, 1950, when previous negotiations failed to secure measures to avoid a nuclear arms race. Among other things, Bohr urged the free exchange of scientific and technological information as critical to creating the basis for peaceful cooperation between nations.

  BY NIELS BOHR

  I address myself to the organization, founded for the purpose to further co-operation between nations on all problems of common concern, with some considerations regarding the adjustment of int
ernational relations required by modern development of science and technology. At the same time as this development holds out such great promises for the improvement of human welfare it has, in placing formidable means of destruction in the hands of man, presented our whole civilization with a most serious challenge.

  My association with the American-British atomic energy project during the war gave me the opportunity of submitting to the governments concerned views regarding the hopes and the dangers which the accomplishment of the project might imply as to the mutual relations between nations.

  The aim of the present account and considerations is to point to the unique opportunities for furthering understanding and co-operation between nations which have been created by the revolution of human resources brought about by the advance of science, and to stress that despite previous disappointments these opportunities still remain and that all hopes and all efforts must be centered on their realization.

  For the modern rapid development of science and in particular for the adventurous exploration of the properties and structure of the atom, international co-operation of an unprecedented extension and intensity has been of decisive importance. The fruitfulness of the exchange of experiences and ideas between scientists from all parts of the world was a great source of encouragement to every participant and strengthened the hope that an ever closer contact between nations would enable them to work together on the progress of civilization in all its aspects.

  Yet, no one confronted with the divergent cultural traditions and social organization of the various countries could fail to be deeply impressed by the difficulties in finding a common approach to many human problems. The growing tension preceding the Second World War accentuated these difficulties and created many barriers to free intercourse between nations. Nevertheless, international scientific co-operation continued as a decisive factor in the development which, shortly before the outbreak of the war, raised the prospect of releasing atomic energy on a vast scale.